Theft/Dishonest crimes

The next series of blogs will cover theft/dishonest crimes. For example, theft, embezzlement, forgery, possession of stolen property, etc. These crimes can carry significant jail time, but they also have the added detriment of being crimes involving moral turpitude when dealing with immigration. It is important to note that if an individual is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude it may prevent any immigration benefits for the alien or the alien's spouse.

CA Penal Code 472 states as follows:

Every person who, with intent to defraud another, forges, or counterfeits the seal of this State, the seal of any public officer authorized by law, the seal of any Court of record, or the seal of any corporation, or any other public seal authorized or recognized by the laws of this State, or of any other State, Government, or country, or who falsely makes, forges, or counterfeits any impression purporting to be an impression of any such seal, or who has in his possession any such counterfeited seal or impression thereof, knowing it to be counterfeited, and willfully conceals the same, is guilty of forgery.

One of the key elements of forgery is that a person intents to defraud, forge or counterfeit the seal of certain organizations/corporations of public institutions that are recognized by the state of California. PC 472 further includes any impressions of these seals. Lastly, anyone who has in his/her possession of the counterfeited seal or impression, knows it is counterfeited and willfully conceals it is guilty of forgery.

As you can see the list is pretty expansive and can include some innocent sounding activities. Anyone that is in possession of a forged social security number or driver's license could be charged with this crime.

CA Penal Code Section 484(a)

Under California Penal Code Section 484(a) a person commits
theft if:
(a) Every person who shall feloniously steal, take, carry,
lead, or drive away the personal property of another, or who
shall fraudulently appropriate property which has been
entrusted to him or her, or who shall knowingly and
designedly, by any false or fraudulent representation or
pretense, defraud any other person of money, labor or real
or personal property, or who causes or procures others to
report falsely of his or her wealth or mercantile character
and by thus imposing upon any person, obtains credit and
thereby fraudulently gets or obtains possession of money, or
property or obtains the labor or service of another, is
guilty of theft. In determining the value of the property
obtained, for the purposes of this section, the reasonable
and fair market value shall be the test, and in determining
the value of services received the contract price shall be
the test. If there be no contract price, the reasonable and
going wage for the service rendered shall govern. For the
purposes of this section, any false or fraudulent
representation or pretense made shall be treated as
continuing, so as to cover any money, property or service
received as a result thereof, and the complaint, information
or indictment may charge that the crime was committed on any
date during the particular period in question. The hiring of
any additional employee or employees without advising each
of them of every labor claim due and unpaid and every
judgment that the employer has been unable to meet shall be
prima facie evidence of intent to defraud.

The current law got rid of the various common law definitions
that used to be presented to juries.  Today, theft includes
theft by trick, theft by larceny, embezzlement, fraud, and
other forms of obtaining property of another in which you do
not have a valid claim to.  California Penal Code 484
contains more parts but I wanted to focus on 484(a) as it
defines the various types of theft.

Theft has traditionally been defined as the larcenous taking
of the personal property of another with the intent to
permanently deprive.  Today, this definition is included in
section 484, but it was expanded to include embezzlement and
other crimes.  For a conviction based on 484, the jurors only
have to convict based on any one of these crimes, they need
not agree or convict on all the discussed crimes.